Quality and Continuous Improvement is often seen as a formal approach to the analysis of performance and systematic efforts to improve it yet Community learning and development is all about people who believe in people – in the possibility of change, in releasing potential, in inclusion and in self determination.

If we recognise continuous improvement is about outcomes. For communities and individuals outcomes are about opportunities, confidence, and connection. For practitioners they are about satisfaction, confidence, and effectiveness. For employers of cld as a whole they include relevance, impact, and influence. These outcomes are linked by their adherence to the core values of:

• self-determination

• inclusion

• empowerment

• working collaboratively

• promoting learning as a lifelong activity

Quality in community learning and development can be understood as the way these values become embedded and extended in civil society and in governance. Here we explore what QCI is all about and how it can be embedded / integrated / absorbed across the whole field of community learning and development.

There are numerous models used to achieve this. Some are very common in the field of Community Learning and Development such as HGIOCLD, LEAP, Investors in People, some are less know but may still be used by individual practitioners and organisation such as Balanced Score Cards, TQM.

For many practitioners it is the feeling of getting it right for the young person, the adult learner, the community that motivates their drive for continuous improvement. It is for this reason that they wish to become a more competent practitioner and it is for this reason that we have placed it under developing the self. Examples in the In Practice and Resources section offer a range of views and methods to support this notion.

• Quality and continuous improvement means Improving practice
• Improving competence
• Improving the function